It was a fine May morning. Not one of those with an east wind and a bright sun, which keep people in a puzzle all as day to whether it is hot or cold, and cause endless nursery disputes about the keeping on of comforters and warm coats, whenever a hoop-race, or some such active exertion, has brought a universal puggyness over the juvenile frame—but it was a really mild, sweet-scented day, when it is quite a treat to be out of doors, whether in the gardens, the lanes, or the fields, and when nothing but a holland jacket is thought necessary by even the most tiresomely careful of mammas.
It was not a day which anybody would have chosen to be poorly upon; but people have no choice in such matters, and poor little No. 7, of our old friends “the little ones,” was in bed ill of the measles.
The wise old Bishop, Jeremy Taylor, told us long ago, how well children generally bear sickness. “They bear it,” he says, “by a direct sufferance;” that is to say, they submit to just what discomfort exists at the moment, without fidgetting about either “a cause or a consequence,” and decidedly without fretting about what is to come.
For a grown-up person to attain to the same state of unanxious resignation, is one of the high triumphs of Christian faith. It is that “delivering one’s self up,” of which the poor speak so forcibly on their sick-beds.
No. 7 proved a charming instance of the truth of Jeremy Taylor’s remark. He behaved in the most composed manner over his feelings, and even over his physic.
During the first day or two, when he sat shivering by the fire, reading “Neill D’Arcy’s Life at Sea,” and was asked how he felt, he answered with his usual smile; “Oh, all right; only a little cold now and then.” And afterwards, when he was in bed in a darkened room, and the same question was put, he replied almost as quietly, (though without the smile,) “Oh—only a little too hot.”
Then over the medicine, he contested nothing. He made, indeed, one or two by no means injudicious suggestions, as to the best method of having the disagreeable material, whether powdery or oleaginous, (I will not particularize further!) conveyed down his throat: commonly said, “Thank you,” even before he had swallowed it; and then shut his eyes, and kept himself quiet.
Fortunately No. 1, and Schoolboy No. 3, had had the complaint as well as papa and mamma, so there were plenty to share in the nursing and house matters. The only question was, what was to be done with the little ones while Nurse was so busy; and Aunt Judy volunteered her services in their behalf.
Now it will easily be supposed, after what I have said, that the nursing was not at all a difficult undertaking; but I am grieved to say that Aunt Judy’s task was by no means so easy a one.
The little ones were very sorry, it is true, that No. 7 was poorly; but, unluckily, they forgot it every time they went either up-stairs or down. They could not bear in their minds the fact, that when they encouraged the poodle to bark after an India-rubber ball, he was pretty sure to wake No. 7 out of a nap; and, in short, the day being so fine, and the little ones so noisy, Aunt Judy packed them all off into their gardens to tidy them up, she herself taking her station in a small study, the window of which looked out upon the family play-ground.